


Between the Woods and Frozen Lake

by Hedgi



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Dark, Gen, I'll just be in hell if anyone needs me, Introspection, all aboard the pain train, guilt kinda, reference to canon-compliant suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:44:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: Waiting for Dr. Brand to resurface so she can keep her end of the bargain with Savitar, Killer Frost learns of a past and a future that awaken memories she sought to keep locked away where they can't hurt her.Now she has a chance to make the best bad choice she can.AKA Hedgi writes another Fight in the Forest





	Between the Woods and Frozen Lake

**Author's Note:**

> Between the woods and frozen lake/The darkest evening of the year  
> ~ Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Killer Frost did not jump when Savitar entered the room, though her spine stiffened, a little. She never would get used to the speed of it, she knew. She hadn’t been when she was Caitlin, and that, at least, hadn’t changed. More’s the pity. She sighed, rolling her shoulder.

“You haven’t killed Doctor Brand,” Savitar said, accusingly.

“Can’t a cat play with a mouse, a little?” Killer Frost asked, examining her fingernails. “You told me it takes her years, what’s a week or two of fun?”

“I didn’t count on the Wells of the Week boosting her confidence,” the distorted voice came from behind the mask. “The time table’s moving up. Remember, the sooner you kill her, the sooner I give you back everything the Flash took from you.”

Killer Frost remembered their bargain. In truth, most of what she had lost as collateral damage to the Flash and his enemies and allies didn’t interest her. She could feel the shape of the words, ‘a once promising career in bio-engineering’ on her lips, but what did that matter, now? It had mattered to Caitlin, but she was long past that. Neither did revenge against Captain Cold or Heatwave, wherever they were hiding in time hold much. What were they, in the grand scheme of things? Any fear they had caused Caitlin was subdued and small and a memory she now enjoyed. She would never be helpless again.

There was one thing offered she wanted, and she would have it, just as soon as the scientist trying to take Caitlin’s place on the team was dead. She had waited years. Another week until she had him back was a small price to pay.

Savitar had not left. She glanced at him, again rolling her shoulder. Slamming into the wall had hurt, though the suit had prevented scrapes. It was not particularly her style—though more hers that Caitlin’s. She would have preferred a lighter blue, something a little less Black Siren, but when gods from the future come bearing gifts, well.

There was a twinge at that thought, some still Caitlin part of her taking offence at calling Savitar a god. Killer Frost ignored it.

“So, when did you become a textile and mechanical engineer?” she asked, almost lazily. “Your past self can hardly sew a button, and it was always, “you two, learn how to make an anti-telepathy-tiara in half an hour” this or “can’t you build something” that.  As if Snow and Vibe were the ones with superspeed.” She nodded to his suit, and lifted her own arm. “Navy’s not really my color.”

“I didn’t make them,” he said, “if you don’t like it, find a suit on your own.”

Killer Frost shook her head. It fit her perfectly, and she was no hand with a needle or sewing machine either.

“So where’d they come from?” she asked, more to keep the conversation going than anything else. She was bored. Brand was in the wind, somewhere hiding out, and until they located her, there really wasn’t much to do. Practice the ice surfing move she’d copied from—

The memory was almost amber in color, like looking at an old photograph. Sitting on a couch, a mug brownie and a scoop of ice-cream, a movie. A warm presence beside her, quoting lines, reeling off factoids.

She shook it off. _The Incredibles_.  She’d used the idea from a children’s film, it was practical was all. So what. It meant nothing.

She could hear the smirk on his face, the calculating glint in his eyes. “The last member of our little _family_.” The last word was a mocking scoff.  “A decade and change from now.”

There was a cold feeling in Killer Frost’s gut that felt nothing like her natural ice, unpleasant. She ignored it, or tried to.

“Vibe?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “That pathetic—“ Again, a sepia toned memory flickered, Vibe in a stupid teeshirt, smiling, Vibe  holding out a glowing necklace, Vibe looking like a kicked puppy with rope burn around his wrists and a blood-edged bruise around his eye. She tossed her head. “I figured he was too soft-hearted to join us. He had a half dozen chances to kill me and couldn’t. You’re telling me that changes?”

Savitar’s laugh grated against her nerves, warped by the choice changer. “Soft-hearted sounds right. Always wanting to believe the best of people. But once I showed him what was at stake, he built what I wanted. All it took was one trip to the past.”

The cold feeling intensified, and Frost hated it. She frowned, more to herself than to Savitar. “What did you offer him?” she asked. Was there anything in the world that could tempt Vibe? It seemed unlikely. “Us back? That we’d be a team again? He fell for that?”

 Savitar laughed again. “Even in the future, he’s not stupid. Neither am I. I didn’t offer him anything. Without the suit, I paid a price, but I only needed to cause one late-night accident.”

 _This,_ Frost thought, _must be what his powers feel like._ A third time in far too short a period, Caitlin’s memories forced through the barriers, water against a dam of ice.

 _Waking on a couch, shoving the blankets off and standing in the kitchen, reaching for the cabinets and the coffee grinder, working her way through a recipe she’d only recently mastered, because_ you have to eat something, Cisco. Please, this isn’t healthy.

_Sitting there, a hand on the cushion beside her, inches from his, kids movies playing softly on the TV, half eaten breakfast plates abandoned on the table, moving without need for spoken invitation to offer a hug._

_Prayers offered up, the Hebrew familiar after so many funerals so close together, mingling with the Spanish and Latin she only understood from repetition._

_Driving in her battered little car, white knuckled ton the steering wheel to the grief support group, taking the long way to avoid the intersection at Magnolia and Main, knowing it was a worse day than usual because he wasn’t singing along to the radio._

_The rope-burned wrists. The look of shame—_ pathetic, Killer Frost butted in— _like a half-drowned kitten as he pulled away from her hug and confessed to building weapons for the Rogues._

Frost reached for a strand of hair, rolling it in her fingers for a moment, her face calm as she warred with herself, locking down her—Caitlin’s—memories and feelings. There was no place for weakness, not anymore.  There was no place for pain, either. For caring. It only made things hurt worse. The cold fist that squeezed at her heart did not ease.

“Clever,” she said, both meaning and not meaning it. “You finally learned how to exploit weakness and make decent plans. Took you long enough.”

Savitar snarled. “An eternity. And don’t push your luck, Killer Frost. We’re not partners. Remember that.”

“I remember more than that. I’m not stupid either.” She stretched. “I’m going out. I need the air, and I think I may have an idea where they’re stashing Brand.”

Savitar moved aside. She nodded her head. “Skirt's a little tight for a curtsy.”

* * *

 

The woods were quiet, snow muting everything and catching in the moonlight.  Frost thought of the school children who would wake up hoping for a snow day, and shrugged. The happiness of random children meant nothing to her. Should have meant nothing to her. This cold felt better, natural, clean against her skin. Standing in the clearing, she waited.

She did not have to wait long. She could feel, against the cold, something warm. A living, human body, coming closer.

“I know you’re there,” she said, almost lazily. “took you long enough.”

“Caitlin—“ Vibe started.

“She’s dead. She’s gone. Let her be dead and give it a rest,” she snapped, cutting him off. “What, you thought I wanted to meet you here, confess my sins, come back to you? Pathetic.”

If the insult hurt, he did not show it, his jaw tightening. He held his hands up, not in surrender, but a fighting stance.

“He sent you to kill me?” Vibe asked. “Is that why you let me track you here? Caitlin, stop.

“Caitlin, you don’t have to do this.”

“I’m not Caitlin,” she hissed. “and I’m not Savitar’s little errand girl.

He dodged her first barrage of ice, as if he had seen it before, and knew where to dodge. His own blast caught her off guard, but she did not lose her balance, much.

“Listen,” he said, again avoiding her attack. She could see his gloved hands, trembling. “The future doesn’t have to be set in stone. You know that. We can change it.”

Frost took a breath, relishing the way the cold air soothed her lungs. “I know.”

 _Rope burns, oil stains, polishing, cleaning, soldering iron burn, holding out the necklace, adjusting the emblem on a scarlet suit, washing dishes, offering a mug brownie,  adjusting the wires in a quantum-splicer, outstretched to stop her—_ Frost looked at his hands, and imagined them at work on the tiny stitches in her suit, the sharp points of Savitar’s armor. The cold in her gut, at her heart, at her throat, solidified. She had made her choices, and this was the best bad option. She told herself it was nothing more than a debt paid, the part of her that was still Caitlin Snow, still Cait, screaming that there were other ways to save her friend, better ways. Frost could not ignore it, could not quiet it, but pressed on anyway.

“Trust me,” she said, her voice smooth and careful. “I know. Savitar’s not the only one who knows what’s coming. This is better than the alternative.”

She called up her power, forming her weapons, and hurled an icicle spear at him. He blasted it apart, as she was sure he would. It felt him open for the second wave, her true goal. The wave of ice struck.

Cisco screamed.

Frost stared down at him, at the shards of ice that surrounded his crouched form. She let nothing show on her face, did not look at his face, just reached down and took his phone from the pocket she knew he kept it in. She hit the distress button, then let the phone drop. The Flash would be here, soon. She left, quickly, through the woods, the ice and snow that spilled from her preventing a trail from forming.

There was something wet on one cheek. She brushed it aside. Just a melting snowflake, and nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sorry.


End file.
